Re: [vox-tech] NVIDIA drivers

[Wes Hardaker]

> "HH" == Henry House <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

HH> Thanks all for your comments on the usability of the proprietary
HH> drivers. However, that's not really what I was asking. I know that the
HH> proprietary drivers work (at least with current kernels); I am
HH> specifically interested in alternatives that I may be forced to used in
HH> the unfortunate event that NVidia stops supporting the CPU/kernel/OS
HH> combination I want to use before I retire the computer.

Sorry...  I should have added "I'm writing all this because I don't
think you have much of a choice".

The open source drivers are still pitiful with 3d support from what
I've seen and heard (and will likely remain so since the hardware
specs aren't released).  So the only reasonable solution is to either
cave and use the non-free ones or have a really fast CPU.

I had a machine with a 2Gz P4 CPU and a 3d card.  bzflag, one of the
few games I play occasionally, and google earth were "usable" but not
"nice".  More ram probably would have helped "some".  Switching to the
proprietary drivers made everything work very quickly with a near-0
load.  Was I happy that I had to go that route?  Nope.  Was I happy I
*did* go that route?  yep.  Did I have a choice?  not really
Maybe use the proprietary ones until the OSS ones catch up or fall
back to the OSS ones when you actually loose the support you're
worried about?  Either way, the card will still work.
-- 
"In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap,
 and much more difficult to find."  -- Terry Pratchett
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Re: [vox-tech] NVIDIA drivers

[Henry House]

[...]
> Speaking to Henry's question about software (at least openGL) acceleration
> -- it's workable on a fast CPU.  I actually played the quake 4 demo
> accidently in software emulation mode and it was almost playable on a
> single core ~2.6ghz Athlon64.  Google Earth (which would probably be a closer
> approxmiation to your intended use) actually works pretty well in software.

Thank you! That's exactly the kind of report I was looking for.

-- 
Henry House
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Re: [vox-tech] NVIDIA drivers

[Troy Arnold]

On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 12:42:27PM -0700, Dylan Beaudette wrote:
> On Monday 04 June 2007 12:31, Henry House wrote:
> >
> > Thanks all for your comments on the usability of the proprietary
> > drivers. However, that's not really what I was asking. I know that the
> > proprietary drivers work (at least with current kernels); I am
> > specifically interested in alternatives that I may be forced to used in
> > the unfortunate event that NVidia stops supporting the CPU/kernel/OS
> > combination I want to use before I retire the computer.
> 
> ah, there is the 'nv' driver which works ok...

Henry was asking about alternative drivers with 3d acceleration.  The nv
drivers do not have any 3d accel. capabilities.  I don't know of any open
driver that has much beyond the simplest functionality. I haven't tried
nouveau.

Speaking to Henry's question about software (at least openGL) acceleration
-- it's workable on a fast CPU.  I actually played the quake 4 demo
accidently in software emulation mode and it was almost playable on a
single core ~2.6ghz Athlon64.  Google Earth (which would probably be a closer
approxmiation to your intended use) actually works pretty well in software.

-t
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Re: [vox-tech] NVIDIA drivers

[Dylan Beaudette]

On Monday 04 June 2007 12:31, Henry House wrote:
> > > "h" == hajhouse  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > h> I've avoided NVIDIA's video cards like the plague for the last few
> > h> years, because I really dislike the idea of being tied to a
> > proprietary h> driver.
> >
> > Well, I've been down this road many times in the past.  I've had both
> > nvidia and ati cards at various times...  At least nvidia *offers* a
> > driver!
> >
> > In the end, when I've tried the OSS vs proprietary drivers the
> > proprietary ones are *always* better when it comes to 3D
> > acceleration.  I've used both, but it's always something like Google
> > Earth that makes me go switch to NVidia's.
> >
> > For Fedora, both the atrms and the livna repositories distributes the
> > pre-compiled drivers so a yum update should grab them.  (Yes, I
> > realize I'm speaking to a largely Debian crowd).
> >
> > The biggest problem with the commercial drivers is that at some point
> > their installation system drops support for older cards and you have
> > to make sure you start grabbing the backwards-compatibility snapshot
> > instead (again, the rpm repositories above distributes compat versions
> > too).
>
> Thanks all for your comments on the usability of the proprietary
> drivers. However, that's not really what I was asking. I know that the
> proprietary drivers work (at least with current kernels); I am
> specifically interested in alternatives that I may be forced to used in
> the unfortunate event that NVidia stops supporting the CPU/kernel/OS
> combination I want to use before I retire the computer.

ah, there is the 'nv' driver which works ok...

-- 
Dylan Beaudette
Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group
University of California at Davis
530.754.7341
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Re: [vox-tech] NVIDIA drivers

[Dylan Beaudette]

On Monday 04 June 2007 10:39, hajhouse wrote:
> I've avoided NVIDIA's video cards like the plague for the last few
> years, because I really dislike the idea of being tied to a proprietary
> driver. Now I am faced with a problem: basically the only
> high-performance video available on laptops is NVIDIA. I know about the
> proprietary binary-only drivers that will provide full 3d acceleration.
> I don't play games but I do use 3d data visualization (not realtime).
> What I would like to know is: if for whatever reason NVIDIA stop
> supporting the Linux drivers, will I be SOL and stuck with an
> unaccelerated card? Or is there a viable Free alternative that will
> provide at least some acceleration? (There is this:
> http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/ --- anyone tried it?) What about
> emulating the GPU in software (assuming a fast dual-core CPU)?

Hi Henry,

I have been using the proprietary drivers for the last 3 yrs now on 
debian/unstable - and it seems to work ok. Just beware that updating some 
packages will break the drivers - resulting in a simple recompile with 
module-assistant.

cheers,

-- 
Dylan Beaudette
Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group
University of California at Davis
530.754.7341
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Re: [vox-tech] NVIDIA drivers

[Henry House]

> > "h" == hajhouse  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> h> I've avoided NVIDIA's video cards like the plague for the last few
> h> years, because I really dislike the idea of being tied to a proprietary
> h> driver.
> 
> Well, I've been down this road many times in the past.  I've had both
> nvidia and ati cards at various times...  At least nvidia *offers* a
> driver!
> 
> In the end, when I've tried the OSS vs proprietary drivers the
> proprietary ones are *always* better when it comes to 3D
> acceleration.  I've used both, but it's always something like Google
> Earth that makes me go switch to NVidia's.
> 
> For Fedora, both the atrms and the livna repositories distributes the
> pre-compiled drivers so a yum update should grab them.  (Yes, I
> realize I'm speaking to a largely Debian crowd).
> 
> The biggest problem with the commercial drivers is that at some point
> their installation system drops support for older cards and you have
> to make sure you start grabbing the backwards-compatibility snapshot
> instead (again, the rpm repositories above distributes compat versions
> too).

Thanks all for your comments on the usability of the proprietary
drivers. However, that's not really what I was asking. I know that the
proprietary drivers work (at least with current kernels); I am
specifically interested in alternatives that I may be forced to used in
the unfortunate event that NVidia stops supporting the CPU/kernel/OS
combination I want to use before I retire the computer.

-- 
Henry House
+1 530 753 3361 ext. 13
Please don't send me HTML mail! My mail system frequently rejects it.
The unintelligible text that may follow is a digital signature.
See  to find out how to use it.
My OpenPGP key: .



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Re: [vox-tech] NVIDIA drivers

[Wes Hardaker]

> "h" == hajhouse  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

h> I've avoided NVIDIA's video cards like the plague for the last few
h> years, because I really dislike the idea of being tied to a proprietary
h> driver.

Well, I've been down this road many times in the past.  I've had both
nvidia and ati cards at various times...  At least nvidia *offers* a
driver!

In the end, when I've tried the OSS vs proprietary drivers the
proprietary ones are *always* better when it comes to 3D
acceleration.  I've used both, but it's always something like Google
Earth that makes me go switch to NVidia's.

For Fedora, both the atrms and the livna repositories distributes the
pre-compiled drivers so a yum update should grab them.  (Yes, I
realize I'm speaking to a largely Debian crowd).

The biggest problem with the commercial drivers is that at some point
their installation system drops support for older cards and you have
to make sure you start grabbing the backwards-compatibility snapshot
instead (again, the rpm repositories above distributes compat versions
too).


FYI, I do have my mythtv box up and running (and love it) and I did
end up using nvidia drivers for it to get the SVideo output on the
card to work.  My older box that was my test case for my myth box
before I built it completely also has a old nvidia card in it and it's
yet to have fallen "out of support" although it's fairly old at this
point (old enough I don't remember when I got it, though I'd bet 4-5
years).
-- 
"In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap,
 and much more difficult to find."  -- Terry Pratchett
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Re: [vox-tech] NVIDIA drivers

[Jonathan Stickel]

hajhouse wrote:

I've avoided NVIDIA's video cards like the plague for the last few
years, because I really dislike the idea of being tied to a proprietary
driver. Now I am faced with a problem: basically the only
high-performance video available on laptops is NVIDIA. I know about the
proprietary binary-only drivers that will provide full 3d acceleration.
I don't play games but I do use 3d data visualization (not realtime).
What I would like to know is: if for whatever reason NVIDIA stop
supporting the Linux drivers, will I be SOL and stuck with an
unaccelerated card? Or is there a viable Free alternative that will
provide at least some acceleration? (There is this:
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/ --- anyone tried it?) What about
emulating the GPU in software (assuming a fast dual-core CPU)?



I have been using NVIDIA video cards for awhile now in Linux.  The 
proprietary driver works very well and is the same for all GeForce cards 
since 5000 series.  I think most distributions have good support for the 
drivers as well.  The only drawback, as you mention, is that the driver 
is not open.  However, I think the benefit to risk ratio is high, and 
therefore I continue to use them.

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[vox-tech] NVIDIA drivers

[hajhouse]

I've avoided NVIDIA's video cards like the plague for the last few
years, because I really dislike the idea of being tied to a proprietary
driver. Now I am faced with a problem: basically the only
high-performance video available on laptops is NVIDIA. I know about the
proprietary binary-only drivers that will provide full 3d acceleration.
I don't play games but I do use 3d data visualization (not realtime).
What I would like to know is: if for whatever reason NVIDIA stop
supporting the Linux drivers, will I be SOL and stuck with an
unaccelerated card? Or is there a viable Free alternative that will
provide at least some acceleration? (There is this:
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/ --- anyone tried it?) What about
emulating the GPU in software (assuming a fast dual-core CPU)?

-- 
Henry House
+1 530 753 3361 ext. 13
Please don't send me HTML mail! My mail system frequently rejects it.
The unintelligible text that may follow is a digital signature.
See  to find out how to use it.
My OpenPGP key: .



signature.asc
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